Poll Reveals Who Dems Want to Run Against Trump

The Democrats won’t gather at their national convention for another three years now, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t already gathering a shortlist of candidates who might be accepting the nomination there.

In one of the first major polls pitting possible Democrat candidates against President Trump, the president lost to every single one — two in particular by wide margins.

However, President Trump’s supporters shouldn’t despair just yet — for several reasons.

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First, the details of the report from Public Policy Polling. In a wider survey that looked at issues involving Donald Trump’s presidency, five potential Democrat candidates were pitted against Trump in a hypothetical 2020 matchup.

The biggest “winner” in the poll was Uncle Joe Biden. The former vice president/current Hair Club for Men client finished ahead of Trump in a theoretical 2020 matchup by a margin of 54 to 41 percent. Second was socialist Clarence Darrow impersonator Bernie Sanders, who outpolled Trump by 51 to 41 percent.

Lesser-known names, however, polled much closer to the incumbent. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker beat Trump by a 43 percent to 41 percent margin. Newly minted California Sen. Kamala Harris, a recent favorite of the party’s far left wing, was only ahead of Trump 42 percent to 41 percent. And our personal favorite, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren — a noted Trump critic and cultural appropriation aficionado — outpolled him by a margin of 46 percent to 43 percent.

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Seems dire? Not quite. There are a number of reasons why Trump fans oughtn’t be too afraid just yet.

First, it’s worth pointing out that while both are very popular Democrats, neither Biden nor Sanders is likely to win the party’s nomination in 2020. On Election Day four years from now, Sanders would be 79 and Biden would be 77-going-on-78. That’s exceptionally old to be elected to a first term in the White House — something that may dissuade potential voters.

Harris, Booker and Warren are far more likely nominees, and each one has serious electability issues.

Harris has the dual problem of being too inexperienced for the party elite — she’s in her first term in the Senate — and too much of an insider for the anti-establishment crowd.

Booker may be the most electable of the group in the general election. However, if the anti-Wall Street sentiment that propelled the Sanders campaign continues into 2020, he may be the least likely to get through the primaries. The New Jersey senator’s ties to the financial industry would likely act as cement shoes for his campaign.

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Warren has the opposite issue — while her blame-business rhetoric plays big on the Oberlin campus, the American electorate isn’t exactly a bunch of Naomi Klein-reading Birkenstock-wearers. A candidate that far left has never won the nomination in a presidential race and would likely face some problems with independent voters — the group that propelled Trump to the presidency in 2016.

There’s also the problem with polling in general and Public Policy Polling in particular. We know how spectacularly the bean-counters of the survey world got it wrong last November. It’s difficult to believe the systemic problems that plagued the polls have been fixed in the space of a few months.

And then there’s Public Policy Polling. You may remember them as the infamous outfit that would ask Americans if they would vote for individuals like Captain Crunch and Deez Nuts in the presidential election. As The Hill pointed out last August, in one of PPP’s surveys, Mr. Nuts was outpolling Green Party candidate Jill Stein by a 3 percent to 2 percent margin.

PPP was wrong on Mr. Nuts, and — surprisingly — by a smaller margin than they were wrong on Donald Trump in key states. In Wisconsin, PPP’s final poll had Hillary Clinton beating Trump 48 percent to 41 percent. In Pennsylvania, that number was 48 percent for Clinton and 44 percent for Trump. In North Carolina, 49 percent for Clinton and 47 percent for Trump. In Florida … you get the idea.

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The next election is a long way off, no matter how soon the Democrats may want it to be here. We’ll certainly see what transpires. And, who knows: If Public Policy Polling has its way, maybe Captain Crunch will be helming the ticket. I hear his socialized crunchberry plan is quite the rage among millennial voters.